Conservation Photography

Conservation Photography

Ramki Sreenivasan [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Conservation Photography

• Understand

• Take

• Use

What is it?

What it is not

Not photography for photography’s sake

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

It is not going to win awards!

No likes!

Going beyond the pretty picture


Offshoot of nature photography but it is born out of “purpose”

Photo: Aditya Panda

Conservation photography is photography that empowers conservation

Photo: Vimal Raj

Everyone can be a conservation photographer

Photo: Shashank Dalvi

You don’t need fancy equipment! Photo: Canon USA

Need to be sensitive to conservation issues

Photo: Anon

Passion to bring about change through your images

Photo: TRAFFIC-India

What you can do starting today?

What you can do starting today?

• Document specific issues

• Tell stories in 5-10 pictures:

• Area or protected area specific

• Issue specific

• Give powerful factual captions

• Seek advice on actioning them – work with local NGOs, report to local authorities, media, petitions, etc.

Conservation photography examples

• Any destruction / construction activity inside a protected area

• Any commercial activity in ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs)

• Habitat destruction or fragmentation — from tree-felling to a full-blown hydroelectric project

• Tree-felling in protected areas and reserve forests

• Roads that have sprung up inside or near a protected area

• Road & railway kills

• Forest fires

Conservation photography examples

• Cattle / goats inside protected areas

• Evidence of poaching / crime – snares, traps, killing, poachers, etc.

• Wildlife kept as pets

• Tourism and its impacts

• Encroachments

• Man-animal conflict, human threats to wildlife, domestic dogs

• Plight of endangered animals

Examples

Big tourism projects destroy habitat and block wildlife corridors

Photo: Akarsha BM / WildCat-C

Man-made linear intrusions have many detrimental ecological effects

Photo: NCF

Images of habitat destruction in protected areas is important evidence for illegal activity

Photo: Shekar Dattatri

Mining in prime tiger habitat outside Tadoba tiger reserve

Photo: Greenpeace

Roads without proper clearances constantly come up in PAs or ESZs


Road-widening projects without clearances frequently come up in highways through PAs

Photo: Suresh G

Sarus Cranes in the backdrop of massive construction in Delhi — losing wetland habitat everyday

Photo: Delhibird

Lakes suffer from poor protection across India. Forest dept. is helpless and usually bullied by other forces for

encroachment / development

Photo: Vishwatej Pawar

Windmills in grasslands and plateaus have come up across India hindering flight paths of birds

Photo: Aparna Watve

Including India’s rarest bird

Photo: Nirav Bhat

Destruction of grassland habitat by ‘planting trees’ in Hesaraghatta. This issue is now in the Karnataka High Court

thanks to a PIL


This illegal tree cutting operation was documented by a birding group in Namdapha Tiger Reserve

Photo: Bano Haralu

Roadkills are a serious conservation threat – a pregnant blackbuck killed by a speeding vehicle in Maharashtra

Photo: Adwait Keole

The danger of urban roads – here a dead leopard killed by a speeding vehicle on NICE road, Bangalore

Photo: Deccan Herald

Tragic– an elephant calf mowed down in Bandipur. Images like these were used to lobby for several highway closures in

Karnataka and other states

Image: Deccan Herald

A sambhar lays dead on an Odisha highway. Roads are sometimes upgraded without need and the first victims are

usually wildlife

Photo: Bivash Pandav

Small animals die too like this Slender Loris in the Western Ghats

Photo: NCF

Shy and elusive creatures are more often seen in markets and roadkills

Photo: Dr. Pramod Patil

Railway tracks pose a significant conservation threat. Every kind of animal – elephant, tiger, lion – have been killed on

Indian tracks.

Photo: Giri Cavale

Animals in human habitation – a fragile “coexistence”

Photo: M. Ananda Kumar

Olive Ridley Turtles killed in fishing nets

Photo: Bivash Pandav

Village dogs and turtles – yet another threat for nesting Olive Ridley Turtles in the Odisha coast

Photo: Sumit Sen

The dangers of village / feral dogs range from competing with wild predators to spreading deadly diseases

Photo: Vickey Chauhan

Village / feral dogs harbour several diseases that can be deadly not only to humans (such as rabies) but to wild

carnivore species as well.

Photo: Jayanth Sharma

A Wild dog with a plastic bottle demonstrates littering by tourists – a serious fall-out of tourism.

Photo: Mahesh Bhat

Critically endangered bustards hiding from tourists in Nannaj, Maharashtra

Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee

No caption required!

Photo: Ponnambalam

Same story. Different location. Tourists and wildlife guides on foot in Kaziranga

Photo: Leio D’Souza

Fragmentation affects endangered animals. This lion-tailed macaque begging for food on a Valparai roadside shows the

plight of a once completely arboreal troupe


Agriculture is another significant threat to wildlife – in this case to the endangered Wild Ass in the little Rann of Kutch

Photo: Nirav Bhat

The endangered Lesser Florican displaying in agricultural fields in Saunkhaliya grasslands, Rajasthan

Photo: Gobind Sagar Bharadwaj

A stark contrast between protected and unprotected areas in Bandipur Tiger Reserve separated by the park boundary

Photo: Shekar Dattatri

Full-fledged farming Inside the heart of Simlipal – one of India’s largest tiger reserves


Pushed to the brink in human-dominated landscapes – critically endangered Gangetic Gharials in the fragile

Chambal river habitat

Photo: Aditya Singh

Temples and religious festivities inside PAs are big threats to wildlife. In Sathyamangalam, lakhs of visitors in over 700

buses visit two temples

Photo: Suraj Kumaar

This Image highlights human-tiger conflict after two cattle-lifter tigers were poisoned by villagers in retaliation in

Ranthambore.

Photo: Aditya Singh

The typical end to a ‘conflict’ leopard – tranquilized and sent to a zoo or re-released to cause ‘conflict’ elsewhere

Photo: Vidya Athreya

More conflict – crop-raiding elephants in the plains of Karnataka

Photo: Shankara

An electrocuted elephant is usually the result of conflict and habitat fragmentation due to plantations

Photo: WCS-India

Elephant taunting became a sport in Coimbatore forests. This photographer created a campaign that stopped this

Photo: Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan

This shocking cellphone image of a frenzied mob setting a captured leopard on fire highlights the height of human-

leopard conflict

Photo: Belinda Wright

Large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes

Photo: Dharmendra Khandal

A freshly killed Grey-sided Thrush shows the sorry state of hunting in Nagaland


A shocking image of freshly skinned Amur Falcons in Doyang, Nagaland. Lakhs were being hunted annually


Sometimes multiple images tell a story better. Here are images of bird trapping in Murlen, Mizoram


Birdwatchers helped nab waterfowl poachers in Siruthavur near Chennai

Photo: Samyak Kaninde

Pelican poaching reported from Kanva dam, Channapatna

Photo: Seshadri KS

Illegally captured parakeet chicks were seized in Palamau tiger reserve in Jharkhand. They were on the way to markets

Image: Aditya Panda

This is the only record of a Blue Pitta in India – taken in a market in Arunachal Pradesh

Photo: Rita Banerji / Dusty Foot

A pet Slow Loris in Mokakchung, Nagaland. Most villagers weren’t aware that keeping wildlife as pets was illegal.

Photo: Nagaland Biodiversity Project

A captive giant squirrel in a coffee estate. The forest department was alerted and hopefully the squirrel is now

free.

Photo: Amoghavarsha

This photographer helped bust a turtle and terrapin trade in Bengali camp market, Raichur, Karnataka

Photo: Santosh Martin

Local markets are a source of illegal bushmeat especially in the Northeast. Here a Slow Loris is for sale for Rs. 500

Photo: Alka Vaidya

A Clouded Leopard Skin Hangs in a Naga Kitchen

Photo: Sandesh Kadur

Cattle grazing in protected areas, Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Odisha

Photo: Aditya Panda

This image depicts the daily plight of forest guards and watchers who are at the frontline of conservation

Photo: Jayanth Sharma

Thanks!

Environment

Conservation Photography